Via Bowers the Poblano Institute did a town by town analysis of how New Hampshire voters transferred their support between 2004 and 2008. Their conclusion is that Kerry voters went for Clinton and Dean supporters went for Obama. This isn’t very surprising, as Clinton, like Kerry, was the choice of Establishment Democrats, and they were both the ‘moderate’ choice. Bowers concludes:
If Clinton’s campaign really is the Kerry and Lieberman coalitions reborn, while Obama and Edwards are splitting the remainder, then Clinton probably wins out. Older women are the largest identity group in the Democratic primary electorate. It will take both a nearly unified, and greatly expanded, progressive creative class plus African-American coalition to have any chance against her.
That’s probably correct, but it might mean that Kerry’s endorsement of Obama (along with his huge mailing list) is more important than the average endorsement.
Even if his analysis is correct, it does not follow that it will pan out that way in other states. I just hate the way everyone wants to get ahead of the voters. What is the point of prejudging the nominating process?
Agreed. The only significance Iowa and New Hampshire have is that they come first. There are 48 other states with primaries coming up, and the bulk of them are more populous and carry more delegates than Iowa and New Hampshire.
the Clintons take the nomination, and Dems lose.
Why is Bill Clinton running for a 3rd term?
I don’t recall Dean have the same appeal among independents and republicans that Obama does. I thought this would make a difference in the open primaries, but not enough of one I guess in NH.
In a way, it seems that the effect of the endorsements Obama has been getting would be to make it so that there really isn’t an establishment candidate. I think this would be helpful in that the battle would be more likely to go to the better campaigner of the two (and I don’t know yet who that is), and revision of strategy in the face of opposition becomes important. Selecting for these attributes will have benefits in the general election.
Aside: Yesterday Kos advised Mich. Dems to vote for Romney to mess with the primary outcome and keep the race going. Might this not be counterproductive for the reasons above? I guess I don’t think Romney has much of a chance of winning the nomination even if he gets help from the dems in one state, so it just gives the eventual winner (McCain or possibly Huck) more practice.
But how did the Kerry/Clinton voters know to live in towns that had Diebold machines?
Clinton got over 40% on Diebolds, under 35% on hand-counted ballots.
All Democratic candidates except Clinton did better on hand-counts than Diebolds. Only Clinton did better on Diebolds.
Well, Bush did better on Diebolds back in 2004.
Just saying.
That’s interesting. I hadn’t given the Kerry endorsement a tremendous amount of weight but I may re-think that. (Spoken as a former Dean supporter who tepidly supported Kerry once he got the nomination.)
so if Edwards is the third wheel and drops does his support goes to Obama? And that would leave Hillary out in the cold, no.